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Sunday, March 13, 2016

ARC Review: I Kissed a Rogue by Shana Galen

When the Duke of Lennox hires Sir Brook Derring, England’s best investigator, to find his daughter, Brook intends only to rescue the lady and return to his solitary life. He deals with London’s roughest criminals every day of the week; surely he should be able to endure seeing his first love again—the perfect girl who broke his heart...

Now her life depends on him

Lady Lillian-Anne Lennox has always done her best to live up to her father’s standards of perfection—at the cost of following her heart. When she’s kidnapped and her perfect life is shattered, Lila has another chance. Together, Lila and Brook navigate not only the dark and deadly side of London, but the chasm of pride and prejudice that divides them.

***MY REVIEW***

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

5 out of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book from Sourcebooks Casablanca months ago, but only got around to reading it recently because I originally wanted to take some time to read the first couple of books in this series first, but when it became clear that I wouldn't have the time to read the others yet, I went ahead and read I Kissed a Rogue and absolutely loved it. This book was absolutely wonderful and is definitely in the running for my favorite historical romance book ever.

First off, I really loved the characters in this book. Pretty much all of the historical romances I read have heroines who are pure and innocent women who are too good, but in this book we have heroine who was once essentially the historical romance version of a mean girl. Lila was spoiled, stole her friend's suitors, and broke many hearts including that of our hero setting her apart from the type of women I'm used to reading in this sub-genre, which made her more interesting and memorable. But the aspect of her character that I loved the most was that she changed and while she couldn't go back in time to change the past she truly understood that how she had acted in the past was wrong and tried her best to be a better person throughout the book. Brook on the other hand was your typical second son and spent the majority of the story agonizing over not being worthy enough for the heroine and refusing to let the past go and consider the possibility that Lila had changed and become a better person in the years they'd been apart in the same way he had. But despite the judgmental way he viewed Lila throughout the book, the way he protected her and made sure she was okay made me love his character all the more.

Secondly, I really just loved the overall story. Everything from the swoon-worthy romance to the mystery concerning who was behind Lila's kidnapping and the murder she witnessed was all really exciting and unforgettable and kept me flipping pages well into the night and picking it back up again first thing in the morning. I couldn't get enough of the romance between Lila and Brooks. Their love story made me feel such a whirlwind of emotions and I don't see myself getting these two out of my head anytime soon.

Lastly, while a lot of the book was fairly dramatic with all the life or death things happening, I really loved that there was also good bit of humor in the story. I won't go into depth about all the scenes that had me chuckling here and there because I don't want to spoil anyone, but they were really wonderful and made the story even more amazing in my eyes because it really did have a little bit of everything to make a extremely satisfying historical romance read.

So as I stated already I loved this book. It was an exceptionally enjoyable and satisfying historical romance mead that I can see myself rereading time and time again and I can't recommend it enough. Seriously, if you love historical romance or are just looking for a good one to start you off I Kissed a Rogue is a must-read!